Sheila Silverman was sitting in her office last Thursday, flipping through the Daily News, when she was stricken with surprise. In two full pages of school-by-school test results, The Rabbi Harry Halpern Day School, a Solomon Schechter affiliate, of which she has been assistant principal for two decades, was listed as having the largest percentage of students who exceed grade level than any other private or parochial school in Brooklyn that took the New York State English Language Arts examination in January. “It should really be no wonder,” says the gloating Silverman. “Our school is literacy-oriented in both the Hebrew and English departments. We have a creative, non-frontal approach.” That means English teachers at the only Conservative day school in Brooklyn do not face students from the front of the classroom but, instead, in select groups, in which, among other innovative projects, the students interpret novels; write short stories, poems and skits, which are often bound into volumes; illustrate compositions and interview authors. Each pupil is required to plow through 25 tomes a year.“We’re into literature and reading,” says fourth-grade English teacher Harriet Schips, 51, who has 14 years’ tenure with the school. “We do tons of reading aloud to them.” For several hours spanning three days, the 32 American-born fourth-graders grappled with a grueling grind that challenged their reading, writing and listening skills. Twenty-two percent scored in the fourth — and highest — category, outshining hundreds of private and parochial schools citywide. Thirty-one percent of the students, however, failed the test. Other schools had more students pass the test but earned a lower percentage because of the large number of students tested. At Yeshivah of Flatbush, for example, 141 students were tested, with eight percent reaching level four, but only 28 percent failed. The mean scale score for the Halpern School was 666, while Flatbush earned a 660.Test scores were divided into four performance levels. Level 4 students consistently demonstrated understanding of written and oral text beyond the literal level. Level three means working at the grade level, while level two is substandard and level one requires remediation. None of the Halpern students were at level one. “We put no pressure on the children before the test but accepted it as part of the curriculum so they could approach it in an unharried manner,” Schips says, while admitting that candidates had been intensively prepped.Samantha Krady, a 10-year-old fourth grader says, “Our teachers encourage us to read a lot, and they made up lots of things to help us in the test. That’s why we all did so well.”“These kids see themselves as writers,” boasts the school’s principal, Moshe Rudin, 39. “By developing an ambience of literacy and by giving frequent recognition to student authors, we create a climate of excellence.” Rudin adds, “If you want to have superstar students, you have to have superstar teachers.” And after reciting a poem by one of his third-graders, Rudin says he is “awed by what these children have inside them.” After graduation, according to Silverman, most of the students go on to Yeshiva of Brooklyn, Magen David or other Hebrew high schools. Of the 28 who completed eighth grade this year, nine plan to attend public school. According to Ron Streeter, associate in education research for the New York State Education Department, public schools, which registered 5.1 percent for the fourth level on the test, exceeded the parochial, which pulled 4.7 percent.Isaac Fink, principal of the Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in Flatbush, says he’s not disappointed his school scored only 2 percent in level 4. “Even though our students spend most of the day on religious studies, 72 percent of the 47 fourth-graders who took the test scored in level 3.” Level 3 students meet state standards and can understand written work beyond a literal level. “In addition to their secular studies curriculum, our students develop high-order thinking skills through Torah learning.” Fink attributes the high Harry Halpern numbers to the fact that most of its students come from more worldly, English-speaking homes and spend a preponderance of their time on secular studies.Pointing out that this is the first year this examination has been given, Streeter asserts, “This test is much more rigorous than what schools were used to.” He adds that the intent is to determine how students will perform on the Regents, which are prerequisite for graduation, and to get schools to improve. “You need a hard test to accomplish that,” he concludes.Yet Zoe Sobel, a fourth grader who says she’s “91/2 years old” and prefers to write poems rather than stories, had no problem with the test. “I read it slowly and thoroughly and followed directions, and it wasn’t hard at all.”
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